Guidance

Immigration status checks by the NHS: guidance for overseas patients

Published 5 April 2019

1. Why the NHS is seeking information about your immigration status from the Home Office

You may have been given this leaflet because you have been advised by the NHS that an immigration status check is being made about you. It explains why this check is required and what happens when it is made.

NHS-funded hospital treatment is only free of charge to people who are ordinarily resident in the UK or exempt from charges in law. Your immigration status is relevant to establishing if you are ordinarily resident in the UK or if some of the exemption from charge categories apply to you. When the NHS does not have accurate information about your immigration status, it needs to seek this information from the Home Office.

The Home Office has a dedicated Status Verification and Enquiries Checking (SVEC) service which responds to such enquiries from the NHS. The service will provide information to the NHS regarding your immigration status, which will help the NHS determine whether or not you are entitled to your NHS care free of charge.

All information is sent via secure email by both the Home Office and the NHS. No information about your medical condition is sent to the Home Office.

2. What happens when an immigration status check is made

The NHS will make an enquiry to the SVEC service by completing a form that contains some information about you which allows the Home Office to correctly identify you. The information might include:

• full name (first name and surname)
• aliases (if applicable)
• date of birth
• gender
• nationality
• current address (if known)
• National Insurance number (if applicable)
• Home Office reference number (if applicable)
• any other reference number (for example passport number)

No medical information is shared with the Home Office. The only information the Home Office needs to enable it to provide the NHS with your immigration status, is this non-medical information.

The NHS will email the completed pro-forma to the SVEC team via secure email.

Once the Home Office has received this information, they will be able to provide the NHS with your most up to date immigration status, which the NHS will then use to establish if you are entitled to free NHS care or if you must be charged.

3. Asking your permission before sharing your information with the Home Office

According to the law, the NHS does not need to seek your permission or consent before it shares personal information such as name, address, date of birth and relevant debt information with the Home Office.

This is because the NHS has a legal duty to establish if charges apply to patients and to make and recover charges from patients not entitled to free NHS hospital treatment.

It is good practice if you are then told that your information has been shared and why.

4. Sharing your information with other government organisations

The Home Office may share your information with law enforcement bodies for the exercise of their functions including national security, the investigation and prosecution of crime, and the collection of fines and civil penalties.

The Home Office may also share your information with other UK government departments such as HM Revenue and Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions for their functions.

All sharing of information is undertaken in line with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 and the borders, immigration and citizenship privacy information notice.

The Home Office retains all information securely in line with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation 2018.

5. Holding your data securely

The Home Office retains all information securely in line with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation 2018.